In early December,
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called for new elections to
be held on March 17. He could no longer tolerate the behavior of his
parliamentary coalition partners. Those on the right criticized him
for yielding to the Palestinians. Those on the left criticized
him for not yielding to gain peace with the Palestinians. Even
Netanyahu's closest allied partner in this government, Avigdor
Lieberman, was very critical of his Gaza war policy. There is no
other country I know of where the cabinet ministers publicly
criticize the head of government! Ah, the uniqueness of Israel
...

Without going into the details, I think the Prime Minister was
correct in his policy during the latest round of combat in Gaza, to
defeat Hamas but not to re-conquer and govern Gaza. However, there
are also urgent unsolved social problems in Israel, especially the
price of housing and welfare costs for the ultra Orthodox (many of
whom are given taxpayer money to study and not work). These issues
cause great division within Israeli society. I think the Prime
Minister has been weak on dealing with these issues. His call for
elections will probably not produce a better coalition, even if he
wins, which now seems to be in question. Public opinion, admittedly a
very fickle indicator of the actual outcome, seems to have swung away
from Netanyahu since the election announcement
...